Messed Up

By Terry Hayman

From an almost-innocent dealing with a serial killer to a couple ambitious actors who’ll do almost anything to get ahead in their careers, here are five stories of ordinary people who walk over a fine line and find themselves in criminal territory, either as victims or perpetrators – they’ve messed up or are messed up. Some manage to squeak through all right. Some not so much. Grab your weapon of choice and come on in.

Contains “The Tides”, “The Grocery Zoo Story”, “Fun with Broken Bones”, “An Actor’s Life”, and “The Final Inch”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiero Publishing
• Release date: Nov 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465848062

Terry Hayman

Raised in five different countries and currently living with his family in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Terry is a full-time writer and actor who accepts struggle, believes in goodness, and seeks truth always.

Book preview

MESSED UP

Terry Hayman

Copyright © 2011 Terry Hayman

Published by Fiero Publishing

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author Foreword

The Tides

The Grocery Zoo Story

Fun with Broken Bones

An Actor’s Life

The Final Inch

Afterword

Sample of Jessica Falls

Author Foreword

Messed up is a normative term. Meaning that it will only convey to a listener or reader what you want it to if the listener/reader shares your sense of what is normal or not messed up.

Good luck with that.

Me, I’m not even going to try. Let’s just say I have my own internal measuring stick which that keeps me on the straight and narrow, but rarely seems to trouble my characters. Or at least rarely stops them from engaging in questionable behavior.

Which begs the question why I write about characters who get caught up in criminal behaviors or in the criminal behaviors of others.

Simple answer is that it’s always fun to step outside the normal rules of behavior and ask yourself what you would do if given this opportunity or faced with this set of pressures? Would you buckle and weakly submit? Would you quickly walk away and remain in your safe, carefully-governed existence? Would you bravely fight for truth, justice, and common decency?

Or would you unleash a little of your dark side? Your atavistic or desperate or greedy side?

I have a friend, Chelsea Graydon, who also writes mysteries for Fiero Publishing, but her stuff is about criminals doing usually-not-too-scary stuff and getting caught by the law, sent to jail, whatever.

These stories are not those stories.

In my crime stories, some of the bad guys are scary and don’t get caught. Or the bad guy is a normal guy who crosses a line. Or gets pushed over it. Right and wrong, moral choices – sometimes we only see them when they flash by and then we have to deal with the consequences. As a reader, we get to take that ride, shiver and think, but take a deep, safe breath when the story’s done.

Here are the geneses of these particular crime stories:

The Tides – I was hanging out with a bunch of professional writers in Lincoln City, Oregon, studying mystery writing under the inimitable Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and we were challenged to write a noir story set in Lincoln City. Now noir tends to be pretty bleak and I’m rarely bleak. (Serious often, but bleak, rarely.) So I created what I’d call a sunny noir story. Which is The Tides.

The Grocery Zoo Story – Before I had kids and took to writing fiction as a career that went well with child rearing, I did a lot of acting for the stage and screen. An early show I did for the Edmonton Fringe Festival was a little two-hander by Edward Albee called The Zoo Story. Only came to understand its brilliance many years later and, while writing about this guy in a grocery store conversing with a talking dog (just because), I tried to insert a little bit of Albee’s idea of connecting into the piece. Weirdness flourishes.

Fun with Broken Bones – This was originally going to be called Tricks with Broken Bones, until my wife pointed out that it would suggest a story about prostitutes. Which it’s not. In fact, it arose out of hearing someone who worked in a P.I. firm talk about the realities of the work. That, together with my knowledge of how private investigations are used to defend against personal injury claims, gave me this twisted little tale.

An Actor’s Life – What claustrophobic writer can resist writing at least one buried-alive story? This is mine. The fact the guy who’s buried alive is an actor… Hm. Wonder where that could have come from?

The Final Inch – Which brings us to this lovely little piece I’d call my road not traveled. Or maybe – Acting: why it will send you straight to Hell. The idea was to explore what could have happened in my life if I’d made a different set of choices way back when about my career path. The irony, of course, is that I’m getting back into acting even as I write this. Few choices are permanent. There should always be time for the things we love to do.

And now I turn these tales over to you to read and enjoy. Take a deep breath and jump in. See you on the other side.

-Terry Hayman

North Vancouver,BC

November 17, 2011

How’s a Midwest girl supposed to know which way it’s going?

The Tides

Terry Hayman

Copyright © 2011 Terry Hayman

So Bonnie stepped out, in her hot pink bikini, onto the long strip of sunny beach that ran up the ocean side of Lincoln City, Oregon, and thought: The tide goes out. The tide comes in. It’s awful hard for a Midwest gal to tell which way it’s going most times, but that ain’t no reason to just sit there.

And with that, she sashayed out along the sand until she finally saw the man to replace her last mistake. Bingo! She slipped off the shoulder-bag which held all her worldly possessions and let it drop to the sand. Then, with her best dancer’s grace, she bent straight from the waist to pick up a smooth skipping stone. She kept her toned legs straight and waved her tight tush in the sun and ocean breeze. After a slow breath, she brought her curly head of auburn hair up one vertebra at a time until her torso stuck out horizontal to the beach. She shifted her weight to her right foot, turned her left foot out, and swept that left leg high up behind her, balancing it with an arched back and raised chin.

This was her gypsy ballerina move. Or her wild child kick. Not that it mattered. The way her it made her butt clench and her boobs try to pop out of her bikini, the target never noticed the finer points.

She turned her face left, caught the guy’s stare through her wild curls, and smiled.

He sat on a towel a little further up from the surf. Maybe thirty-four? Clean cut. Fair haired. A little beak-nosed with a short scar over his left eyebrow, but handsome in a skinny, sun-starved kind of way. New-looking beach bag. New-looking bathing suit, bright green tee-shirt, towel, sunglasses. And all alone on this stretch of beach.

Bonnie guessed he’d driven out to Lincoln City spur of the moment. Work was shitty. Needed a break. Only realized after he checked into, like, the only unbooked hotel room in all of Lincoln City, that he’d better equip himself. Never knew what hot babe you might meet down on the beach, right?

So right.

Hi! she called. She swung down her foot, shook back her curls and arched her back a little.

Hey, the guy said.

I’m Bonnie! she called to him, not moving closer. Not yet. Never scare off your dinner ticket.

Norm, he answered, then touched his mouth. Um...uh...Norman.

She gave her musical laugh and stretched out her hand that held the stone towards him. She knew the swivel of her body, the light swing of her tits would keep his focus. Wanna see a stone I just found?

Make him come to you.

There was hesitation. Lot of guys were like that – stuck watching life, never committing. Norman nervously brushed his hand on his towel. Uh...

Come on, Bonnie said. It’s a once upon a time kind of thing ‘cause I’m going to skip it!

It broke his pattern. He blinked at her, looked past her to the steadily rolling waves of the pacific, and allowed himself a lopsided smile. He pushed himself up and scuffled towards her.

Something inside Bonnie sighed with a rush of pleasure when he stopped a foot away and it was all she could do not to throw her suntanned little body at him, wrap herself around his pale skin like a child round her mamma’s leg. But that eagerness was what had freaked her last mark. The guy had started looking around more, checking his Blackberry for messages all the time. He’d been about to declare his business trip over and drop her. Bonnie knew the signs.

So she’d dropped him first. Fucked him so hard last night that he slept like a corn truck hit him. That let